A group connected to anti-abortion, billionaire Trump mega-donors has funneled more than half a million dollars to an Alabama supreme court judicial candidate who said “embryos were human beings whose lives begin at fertilization”.
Alabama’s supreme court was thrust into the limelight earlier this month when eight of the court’s nine justices ruled that embryos created for in vitro fertilization (IVF) were “extrauterine children” in the eyes of the law.
The decision forced three of the state’s eight fertility clinics to stop providing advanced treatments, infuriated doctors, and left hundreds of would-be parents with few options for continuing treatment. At least one company that ships frozen embryos has paused business in the state, making it difficult to ship existing embryos elsewhere.
Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has attempted to back away from the Alabama supreme court’s ruling. Trump reportedly sees extreme abortion bans as a threat to Republican victories. Republicans more broadly have struggled to respond to the decision.
The group funding the Alabama candidate, Fair Courts America, is connected to anti-abortion billionaire mega-donors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein. Fair Courts America represents the only outside group donating in Alabama’s upcoming primary race for supreme court chief justice, scheduled to take place next week.
The race pits the long-shot candidate Bryan Taylor, backed by the Uihlein-affiliated Fair Courts America, against the sitting supreme court justice Sarah Stewart. A recent Fair Courts America ad told voters: “If you like Trump’s judges, you’ll love Bryan Taylor.” Trump confirmed three justices to the US supreme court, including at least one who supported a group that opposes aspects of IVF treatment.
In a statement on the IVF decision, Taylor said he believed “we can uphold the sanctity of life without subjecting IVF clinics to lawsuit abuse”, but that resolving the legality of IVF in the state is “within the purview of the legislature”.
“I hope they can act quickly with the dual aim to protect life and support families,” he said.
Whether the legislature can, in fact, resolve the legal status of IVF in the state is unknown. In a 2011 case, the state supreme court found fetuses had the rights of children in wrongful death suits. Further, an Alabama constitutional amendment to protect “the sanctity of life” that was cited by the court’s recent decision could be used to invalidate new laws meant to protect IVF, as the constitution would override laws passed by the legislature.
The Alabama supreme court seat in question now belongs to the chief justice, Tom Parker, who wrote a fiery opinion laced with biblical references in the recent IVF case. Parker’s seat is open because he hit a state mandated retirement age. Stewart, a sitting justice, voted in favor of the recent IVF decision.
“The US supreme court decision in Dobbs really supercharged the cycles around state supreme court elections,” said Douglas Keith of the Brennan Center for Justice judicial project, about the case that overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way for Alabama’s supreme court decision. “The 2022 cycle saw almost double any midterm had ever seen.”
Uihlein is a cardboard magnate whose Uline boxes are ubiquitous in commercial shipping. He is descended from the Schlitz beer fortune. The Uihleins are the second largest individual political donors in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2022, they donated more than $89m exclusively to Republicans.
The Uihleins are known for anti-abortion activism and election denialism. They donated heavily to Trump in 2016 and 2022. In 2022, they donated to multiple Trump-aligned candidates. This fall, they backed the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, in the Republican presidential primary, before he dropped out of the race. Trump is almost certain to seek their support in the upcoming general election.
The couple spent millions to block a ballot initiative in Ohio that would have hindered an effort to codify abortion rights in the state’s constitution. The Uihlein-backed effort failed, and the Ohio constitutional amendment codifying abortion rights passed.
The Uihleins have given generously to Becket, a powerful religious law firm, the Pro-Life Action League and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provides model legislation to states, including anti-abortion laws and information.
The Uihleins were also among the top donors to Trump; have backed unfounded claims about the legitimacy of the 2020 election; and supported some of the activists who organized the “Stop the Steal” rally immediately before the January 6 insurrection.
Spending in the Alabama supreme court race has come from Fair Courts America, a Uihlein-affiliated group which has also worked on state supreme court races in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Illinois.
The Brennan Center, which has tracked spending in state supreme court races for decades, said the Uihlein-connected group spent $647,900 on ads in support of Taylor. By comparison, his opponent Stewart spent $273,740 of her own money on television ads. Taylor has spent $13,900 of his own cash TV ads.
What remains unclear is the motivation for spending in Alabama’s supreme court race this year. The ad for Taylor only came to the Brennan Center’s attention on Friday, as the race was not seen as an especially high-profile one.
“There must be some motivation,” said Keith. “The groups that are getting involved in state supreme court races are incredibly sophisticated political players. They know why these courts matter and they know how far their money can go in these races.”
“There must be something coming before the court or likely to come before the court that makes this group want to get involved,” he said.
Keith used a recent example from Kentucky to illustrate how detail-oriented Republican-backed court campaigns can be. In 2022, donors including Fair Courts America poured money into not only the composition of the state supreme court, but also into the race of a trial court judge in Franklin county who had repeatedly ruled against the Republican-dominated state legislature.
“You really have to understand the legal system to get involved in a race that small, and I think that speaks to how strategic, at least groups on the right, are being around judicial elections,” said Keith.
